Moore’s Law: Limitation, Confusion, Inconsistencies

Moore’s law about the extremely fast expansion of computing power based on the number of transistors, and the limits of such expansion, is a bit more complicated than it may seem. As Singh (2015) recently pointed out, Moore’s observation, “shaped our lives, touching almost every aspect of it. What was equally fascinating about Moore’s Law is that it didn’t follow any scientific principle. It was something else entirely.” Singh means that Moore’s law isn’t actually a law so much as a projection, but what happenings might make that projection inaccurate?

Singh (2015) went on to point out that “consumers’ increasing reliance on cloud computing is giving chipmakers fewer reasons than ever to make some kinds of processors more complex.” In other words, the drive towards micronization might be curbed because computing will not happen so much in our phones and other micro-technology, so much as at a central computer. It is unclear how much of an impact this will have going forward, but it should be worth keeping an eye one.

It is also important to note that Moore’s law is based on transistor based computing and not all forms of computation are bound by its limits. Singh explained that, “Quantum computing is entirely different from transistor-based computing, which Moore’s Law is based on. It uses quantum entanglement to allow a combination of binary input using qubits, the quantum bits of information.” Intel recently invested 50 million dollars on a quantum computing initiative, and several prominent researchers believe quantum computing may be the way toward Artificial General Intelligence (the more technical term for A.I. that is actually smart, and able to learn like, or even better than, a human being).

Nature (2015) reported that there was recently a breakthrough in quantum computing: “ The IBM breakthroughs…show for the first time the ability to detect and measure the two types of quantum errors(bit-flip and phase-flip) that will occur in any real quantum computer. Until now, it was only possible to address one type of quantum error or the other, but never both at the same time. This is a necessary step toward quantum error correction, which is a critical requirement for building a practical and reliable large-scale quantum computer ”. (As cited in Beschizza, 2015 ). It is still difficult to say if quantum computing to become a reality, but, if it does, Moore’s law will likely go out the window.

Beschizza, R. Quantum computing breakthrough announced. Boingboing. Retrieved from http://boingboing.net/2015/04/29/quantum-computing-breakthrough.html

Singh, M. (2015, September 15) . Moore’s law isn’t dead, but it could become irrelevant. Gadgets 360. Retrieved from http://gadgets.ndtv.com/laptops/opinion/moores-law-isnt-dead-but-it-could-become-irrelevant-740229